About 200 factory workers protested on Phnom Penh’s Veng Sreng Blvd. for about an hour Tuesday morning after they learned that their struggling factory had removed valuable equipment from its premises.
Hundreds of workers protested outside a Phnom Penh garment factory alleging insufficient compensation for more than 1,000 workers who were laid off.
Hundred of tons of fabric used in Cambodia’s garment industry ends up as waste, which then either ends up a landfill or is used to fuel other businesses, such as brick kilns.
An apparent outbreak of hundreds of cases — at a factory where workers say 80 percent were vaccinated — is a reminder that ending the Covid-19 pandemic is not a simple matter, health experts say.
Covid-19 outbreaks of hundreds of workers are continuing to hit garment factories in and out of Phnom Penh, as factories navigate whether to suspend operations or keep up production.
About 2,000 factory workers blocked National Road 6 over the weekend in Kampong Cham province, asking that they be given Covid-19 tests, be allowed to quarantine at home, and be paid 50 percent of their wages, according to provincial officials.
Factories should not require vaccinations for employees to return to work, Prime Minister Hun Sen and the Labor Ministry said over the weekend, reversing an earlier proposal that had led to protests among workers seeking quicker vaccinations.
Garment factories outside the strictest lockdown zones are looking to reopen with half their workforce and Covid-19 preventions as Phnom Penh eases lockdowns, but the restrictions have still had an impact on cash flow and production for several garment industry players as well as workers.
More than 1,600 workers from 206 factories have tested positive across the country, the government said at a press conference Wednesday, with thousands of others placed in quarantine.
Phnom Penh’s Din Han Enterprise garment factory, which has seen hundreds of workers test positive for Covid-19, is struggling to pay last month’s paychecks to workers placed in lockdown.
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